Ice coolers and ice chests have been used for many years to preserve food and beverages in situations in which there is no electrical power available for running regular refrigeration equipment. Ice chests are very popular in outdoor activities such as camping, fishing, boating, picnicking, sports events, music concerts, and others.
In particular, ice coolers have been previously adapted for the dual role of not only providing cold storage for food and drink, but also for providing artificially cooled air and/or cooled water for spraying or misting a user who may need relief from the heat.
Examples of the use of an ice chest or ice cooler in providing temporary air cooling are found in the following inventions. An ice chest having a water spray for misting a user was described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,463,756, issued to Lewis on Oct. 15, 2002, for Combined Ice Chest And Personal Cooling Apparatus. Cooling System For Ice Chest was granted U.S. Pat. No. 6,336,341 on Jan. 8, 2002, and was developed by McGraw et al. On Jun. 3, 2003, U.S. Pat. No. 6,571,568 issued to Link for Portable Air Conditioning Apparatus, an ice cooler based invention.
The designs noted above, however, are inefficient and do not take full advantage of the air cooling power which may be derived from a typical ice chest.